Dullahans X FILES
by Manic Penguin
Summary: An Alias and X-Files crossover. After Lauren Reed's body is found in Galway, Ireland, the topic of Rambaldi comes to the attention of the X-Files department. Set post Resurection for Alias and around First Person Shooter for X-Files
1. Chapter One

_**This is going to be a several part cross-over involving both ALIAS and THE X-FILES. The lore ofALIASwill be more important than the X-FILES, but I'll explain everything as we go along.**_

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**_Enjoy!_**

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_**FBI Headquarters**_

_**Washington, DC**_

_0700 h._

When Special Agent Dana Scully arrived at the office the door was locked and the lights inside were off.

This was unusual for two reasons.

One, her partner, Special Agent Fox Mulder, was always at work before her except for when he was in the hospital.

And, two, Mulder wasn't known for his energy conserving and, when Scully had left the office the night before Mulder had still been working tirelessly on his most recent obsession: proving that Dullahan's exist.

Scully flashed back to the previous evening as she unlocked the door.

_"What the hell is a Dullahan, Mulder?" Scully asked._

_"An Irish fairy, Scully," Mulder replied, barely even blinking anymore, his face lit with excitement as he read yet another report of sightings on the Net._

_"Anything more specific?" Scully asked, deciding to hear him out before she started arguing her side of the 'what the hell are you on now, Mulder?' argument. It was easier for her to disprove—or, more commonly, though she hated to admit it most times, prove—his theories once she had actually heard them out._

_"They're your basic malevolent entity, Scully," Mulder said, now looking at her instead of the screen, his glasses swiftly removed so he could see her clearly. "The original Headless Horseman, if you will. They ride around the Irish countryside and kill anyone who sees them while they search for the homes of dying people. Now, there aren't many reports in the last decade or so, but recently there have been at least a dozen deaths where the cause was a basin of acidic blood appearing and being thrown in the face of the victim, or being struck in the eye with a human spine and sent into a coma that is so deep that it makes Snow White in her glass coffin look lively."_

_"As opposed to those other, **lively** comas," Scully said derisively. "Hey, maybe that's the answer to waking these people from their comas. True love's first kiss. Worked for Snow White, right?" she added sarcastically. "Come on, Mulder. There's gotta be a more logical answer to what happened to those people. A toxin was introduced to their systems or maybe they got in a fight and suffered major brain damage. There are logical explanations for what is going on. You're looking for fairies when there's just science. Hell, there's a civil war going on right now, that could easily explain what has happened."_

_"How much do you know about Irish fairies?"_

_"I know that Missy used to read everything on them that she could when we were little," Scully said. "Our grandmother enjoyed telling us stories about magic and myths from Ireland. She'd love you. You'd like her, too, I think. She loves all that crap you devote your life to."_

_"It's not crap," Mulder pouted._

_"Whatever," Scully said, rolling her eyes. "What's this all about, anyway?"_

_"Galway, Ireland. Reported sightings of Dullahans every few nights for the last four months, all resulting in a death," Mulder said, fishing a file out of the mess on his desk—organized chaos, he called it—and tossed it to Scully without a care in the world._

_"What does this have to do with us?" Scully asked._

_"A senator's daughter was visiting her aunt and was killed. Skinner already informed me that this is supposed to be our top priority."_

_"So we're going to Galway?" Scully asked, unable to hide her excitement at the prospect of going to Ireland._

_"Not yet. Our bald and fearless AD wants to see if we can crack this from US soil before shelling out the dough to send us to the Emerald Isle," Mulder said. "I've gotta go see a man about a printer. See you tomorrow?" he said, getting up from his desk and heading for the door._

_"Yeah," Scully said distractedly as she stuffed the file into her briefcase with several other files that she needed to take home._

_She left the office, leaving the lights on but locking the door, knowing that Mulder would be back soon but that he would kill her if she left the door unlocked. And, if there was one thing that she had learned working with Fox Mulder, it was that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that someone isn't out to get you._

Deciding that she might just be catching the paranoia that surrounded her partner like an itchy wool blanket, Scully held off on the frantic calling to find him that was her first reaction to the lack of Mulder in the office. If he didn't show by ten she would call his cell. He was probably just doing his thing, taking off without her to check out a lead on whatever the hell it was this time around.

After putting together her report for a case they had just closed, transcribing two months of overdue autopsy notes, and returning the phone calls and e-mails she'd received since she left the night before, Scully had nothing left to do except for worry about what had happened to Mulder. With his track record for getting his adorable ass into the tightest of corners against the creepiest and weirdest of foes, Scully was positive that something or someone had done something to Mulder.

Problem was, other than the whole Dullahans thing, they had no cases pending, Violent Crimes didn't have any profiles for him to write, and none of their enemies had been sighted anywhere in the vicinity of DC. Even their dear old Smokey, CGB Spender, has been quiet of late, though not suspiciously. There had been whispers of things he was involved in and, though they never found any solid evidence, they never had before. At least, not that had survived whatever 'cleansing ritual' Smoking Man had put into place in case he got caught.

Kim, Skinner's assistant, called Scully in the middle of her second recap of all the cases that had left people pissed off at Fox Mulder—not a short list by any means—and the slightly mousy but still beautiful girl said that the Assistant Director wanted to see her immediately.

They hadn't pissed anyone off in weeks, not even other agents in the building, and even their current issues with Irish faeries didn't warrant an 'immediately', so, of course, Scully knew something had happened to her partner.

Willing herself not to jump to conclusions, Scully grabbed her cell phone and headed out, locking the office and rushing to the elevator. The car came quickly and was blessedly empty. She may be able to hide her emotions from the world, but sometimes even the Hoover Building's resident Ice Queen had to have time alone to refreeze from time to time. Scully frowned when she realized she had referred to herself as the Ice Queen, a nickname that had always hurt her, especially when she found out that some people she counted as friends had taken to calling her the derisive combination of perfectly innocent words.

After exiting the elevator on the floor that held Skinner's office, Scully stopped to talk to a tech from the SciCrime lab, then she went into the outer area of the Assistant Director's office. Kim looked at her sympathetically as she told the redhead to go right on in. Another bad sign. Even when the X-Files team was in for a major ass kicking they had to wait to see Skinner. Being able to go right in meant that the AD had cleared his schedule, fended off agents and coworkers, had Kim hold his calls, and probably used some kind of bug killer so that their conversation would not be overheard by prying ears.

When she entered the office, the AD was at his desk, flipping through a thick encyclopaedia that Scully recognized as one of Mulder's books on the supernatural and the occult. It was a personal favourite of his, containing the most valid—in his opinion—and detailed descriptions of aliens that had ever been published by a semi-reputable publishing company. Scully remembered that Skinner had borrowed the tome to get better acquainted with the X-Files, as that particular volume had been referenced in more than half of their cases over the last few years.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Scully said from just inside the door.

"Take a seat, Agent Scully," Skinner said gruffly, looking up but refusing to meet her eyes. Scully swore silently as she sat down in her usual chair, more cognizant than usual of her partner's absence from the chair beside hers. "I called you up here under the assumption that you would be able to tell me where Agent Mulder has gone, but judging by the look on your face I see that is not the case."

"I haven't spoken to Mulder since he left last night to get a new printer for the office," Scully admitted. Usually she refused to admit that she had lost track of her partner, but something about this whole situation felt different. "I haven't called him, yet, though. He may just be following up on a lead or taking some time for himself."

"It is possible," Skinner conceded.

"Is there a specific reason that you wanted to know where Mulder is?" Scully asked tentatively.

Skinner sighed and took off his glasses to rub his eyes. "The investigation into Senator Reed's daughter's death has been given a higher priority as on seven this morning. The autopsy results came back this morning and everyone involved is confused."

"Confused?" Scully frowned. Skinner handed her a file and she opened it up. It was the autopsy report for one Lauren Reed. "_Lauren Reed. Age: thirty-eight. Height: five foot seven. Weight: 132 lbs. Muscle tissue in good condition prior to death. Internal organs in good health, though liver indicates a history of alcoholism. Cause of death, seven gunshot wounds; one to the left shoulder, one to the right shoulder, three to the chest, one to the right hip, and one to the right arm. No rounds recovered, all shots through-and-through. Dirt under her fingernails indicates she was at a dig site within hours of her death, though she was found in her bed. Lividity in the upper back, shoulders, neck, and head indicates that she was slumped upside down long enough for Rigor to set in before being moved to her bed in her aunt's house._ Sir, other than the fact that she was obviously killed elsewhere by someone who really wanted her dead, there is no mystery other than who killed her."

Skinner handed Scully another file. She opened it and groaned. "_Lauren Reed; National Security Council liaison to the Los Angeles Joint Task Force Operations Centre._ She worked for the NSC with the CIA?" she asked.

"That's not all," Skinner said, handing Scully a third file.

Scully skimmed through the file until she got to the point of the thick memo. "_It has been brought to the attention of Director Marcus Dixon by one Agent Michael C. Vaughn that Lauren Reed is a mole within the Agency, her true loyalties lying with a Russia-based terrorist group known as The Covenant. Agent Vaughn came by this information due to the fact that he is married to Reed and found incriminating and irrefutable evidence in their home in Santa Monica. Additional information regarding The Covenant, Agent Michael C. Vaughn, Director Marcus Dixon, Lauren Reed, Agent Sydney A. Bristow, Milo Rambaldi, and Nadia Santos is classified Omega 17 and requires a minimum of level eight clearance._"

Scully closed the files and looked up at the Assistant Director. "How is this an X-File? And how did this fall into the FBI's lap when it is clearly not a domestic issue but an international one?"

"Senator Matheson handed these packages to me this morning. Technically neither of us should be reading this material, but he felt that it would be in everyone's best interest that we have this information on hand," Skinner said, getting up and going over to the conference table on the other side of the room. There were several document cases, all clearly labelled with the governmental seal of Omega 17 material. "This box relates to Marcus Dixon," Skinner said, putting his hand on one of the boxes. "This one relates to Nadia Santos. These three contain information on the Covenant. These two are on Michael Vaughn. This is Lauren Reed's box. These eight are filled with information on Milo Rambaldi. And, most impressive of all, Sydney Bristow fills these ten boxes."

"Who is this woman?" Scully asked, looking at the half of the table covered in boxes of files on Sydney Bristow.

"Where to begin," Skinner said breathlessly. "She's got a teaching degree for English Literature from UCLA. She worked for what she was told was a covert ops section of the CIA for seven years before her fiancé was murdered and she found out that she was working for the Alliance of Twelve."

"Wait, is this the same Agent Bristow that managed to get everything the CIA needed to take down the Alliance?" Scully asked. Skinner nodded. "I have a friend that works at Langley. David was heavily involved in the work leading up to the takedown. He couldn't tell me much until it was all over, naturally, but apparently things were stagnant until October of 2001."

Skinner nodded and picked up a file, checking his facts before speaking. "_October first, 2001, Sydney Anne Bristow walks into the LA office of the CIA and gives her statement about what she knows about the Los Angeles cell of the Alliance. SD-6. She was assigned a handler, Michael Christopher Vaughn, and less than two years later the Alliance was nothing more than a memory_."

"Impressive," Scully said, reaching for one of the boxes on Sydney and pulling it closer to her seat. Something about the woman made Scully want to learn more about her. "She's had quite the life," Scully said softly as she read the official documents on what Sydney Bristow had gone through. "I can't imagine living with the emotions behind all these events. Being a double agent, losing her fiancé, lying to her friends…" she said, her voice trailing off as she was overcome with respect for the woman she had never met and had only read a little about.

"I'm going to Los Angeles," Scully said, closing the file.

"I expected you would want to," Skinner said. "Kim has your ticket and everything you'll need to get some answers. Copies of these files will be waiting for you at the field office. I'll keep looking for Mulder and send him your way when I track him down."

"Thank you sir," Scully said, briskly walking out of the office, stopping only briefly to grab her things from Kimberly before taking the stairs two at a time to get back down to the office so she could gather her belongings and get home in time to pack some clothes before making her flight.

_**TBC…**_


	2. Chapter Two

**_JOINT TASK FORCE OPERATIONS CENTRE _**

**_LOS ANGELES_**

**_0400h (PST)_**

Ever since Wittenberg Sydney had been on leave. Vaughn was in DC for an intense psych eval after burning down his house upon being released from the hospital, and Nadia had gone off with her father for reasons Sydney decided she didn't want to know.

As for her own father, Sydney had been avoiding him.

Going to a place called Harrison Hot Springs in British Columbia, Sydney had taken some well-deserved time alone. She sunbathed by Lost Lagoon, hiked and climbed around in the glacier rocks, hung out at the pool, and helped the economy by purchasing more souvenirs than anyone really needed.

Between Palermo and Wittenberg Sydney had avoided Vaughn, turning to her father to deal with Lauren's body. Unfortunately, by the time Jack got to Palermo, Sydney was in Wittenberg and Lauren's body was gone.

When her vacation time ran out, Sydney reluctantly went back to work. She was pleased that her father wasn't there. Dixon said he was on an assignment. Sydney wasn't sure if she should buy that or not, but she found that she didn't care. Vaughn wasn't back yet, still working out his anger in DC, and Sydney hated that she felt relief that he wasn't around. But Lauren had changed Vaughn. He was no longer the man who had broken into the Vatican with her. He was the man who shot a full clip into his wife, drawing out her death, dramatizing it, when a kill shot to the heart would have sufficed. Sure, Lauren deserved it, but Sydney didn't like watching anyone suffer.

Weiss was a godsend, watching over her in the first few weeks back at work. He was her rock once again, as he had been immediately upon her return from the living dead. Beer and tequila and homemade pizza with lots of sauce because it's all about the sauce and late night talks about everything and nothing that usually led to one or both of them passing out in the living room—usually his because it felt more like a home than hers—and the both of them waking up the next morning with terrible hangovers and wanting nothing more than more sleep and maybe a bottle of Aspirin or two.

Then Vaughn came back and moved in with Weiss. His muscles were more defined, as if he had spent the entire month and a half in the gym twenty-four-seven, and his eyes were more haunted than they had been, but his anger was much more manageable and when he asked if she would like to get dinner after work at a new restaurant that he'd heard about, she said yes.

They'd gone slow, dinners, movies, the occasional drink with friends. Light kisses goodnight that all too quickly progressed to heated gropings goodnight. Then fooling around on the couch, nudging at the line in the sand with their toes a little more with each date. They knew that when they finally crossed that line again it would be better than ever before.

That was the one regret Sydney had about her relationship with Vaughn before her non-death. They didn't do the dating thing. They went from people who would be killed for knowing each other to committed lovers before the oven timer even went off on their first dinner together. Sure, leftovers after hours of impassioned sex are great, but there's something about the thrill of thinking _'is tonight the night?'_ when slipping into the sexy lingerie _'just in case'_ and imagining what it would be like to wake up in the arms of your lover in the morning as you apply that slight coat of lip gloss before answering the door.

And, though slightly disappointed that their reunion hadn't followed some champagne and roses evening, but a mission gone wrong where they just barely made it out alive where their coupling had been more of need to confirm that they were in fact alive than a need to show their love for each other, Sydney knew that romance could come later.

That was eight hours ago.

Two hours ago she and Vaughn had received urgent calls to get their asses back to work, despite the fact that they had e-mailed their reports already and were due to have the weekend off. Now all she wanted at that moment was to attack the grunt walking by with the Veinte Starbucks in his hand.

The urgent call turned out to be a blatant security leak, several files being accessed by someone with a high level of clearance but not high enough, having to hack the rest of the way through. Marshall had been on the case immediately, the software protecting the files concerning Rambaldi in _any_ way being his design.

Sydney wasn't sure why they were needed. She also wasn't sure where Vaughn was. He had been pulled away by an exhausted Dixon the moment they arrived. She'd been sitting at her desk, fighting the urge to go into Marshall's office and curl up on his plastic couch to get some sleep.

As Sydney ran through the last few months to keep her eyes open, her phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Sydney Bristow?" a gruff man asked.

"Yes," Sydney replied, fearing her exhausted state was seeping into her voice. "Who is this?"

"I'm Assistant Director Walter Skinner with the FBI. I wasn't actually expecting to get through to anyone. I was just going to leave you a message," the man said.

"Well give me the message now, I'll deliver it personally," Sydney quipped, not sure where she got the strength to joke.

She got a low chuckle in response. "I just wanted to let you know that an agent under my command is headed to Los Angeles right now and she and her partner would like to speak to you."

"Regarding what?" Sydney frowned. She didn't trust the FBI, and had no real proof that this man was who he said he was. She took her computer out of sleep mode and started searching for an Assistant Director Walter Skinner at the FBI in the government mainframe.

"Regarding Lauren Reed," Skinner said.

Sydney's fingers hovered over the keyboard. "Lauren Reed is dead," she said.

"I know. Her body was recovered in Ireland three days ago. The agent who wishes to speak to you has some questions about the autopsy report."

He was lying. It wasn't hard to tell. His voice was too regulated. She guessed he was ex-military, going by the clipped tones used by those types to shave a few seconds off their conversations, but it was still insanely easy for her to tell that he was lying to her. The problem was, without looking him in the eye, she couldn't tell about what.

"What is this agent's name?" Scully asked. She found Skinner's personnel file. Ex-military, served in Nam, currently working out of the Hoover building in a cushy seventh floor office. He had five very successful divisions under his command, all falling under the Violent Crimes Unit's far-reaching umbrella.

"Dana Scully. She'll be contacting you later in the day," Skinner said. "Probably around noon, your time."

Sydney looked up Dana Scully while she was on the computer. Medical Doctor, pathologist, specifically, with a boatload of commendations and about the same number of reprimands. Her partner was a man named Fox Mulder whose list of reprimands was impressive, mostly in the _'flouting orders'_ category, though there was one incident of attacking an auditor that struck Sydney as hilarious, but it was his commendations that really impressed her. Monty Props, a huge case in the late eighties that she heard about at school and had scared Francie shitless until the FBI tracked the psycho down. Several of the cases were ones she had heard of, though a lot of them seemed to be the type that get buried on the fortieth page under the ads for used farm equipment in rural areas or stories about the dog that came home from across the country in the bigger papers.

She looked into what their department specialized in.

X-Files.

Unexplained phenomena.

Suddenly Sydney knew what Skinner had lied to her about.

"You're the one that accessed the files," she accused. "You're the one that downloaded my file from the CIA's database. What the hell do you want with me?"

Skinner sighed heavily. "I usually don't have people pissed off at me until _after_ Mulder gets there," he muttered. "Look, Miss Bristow—"

"_Agent_ Bristow," Sydney corrected harshly.

"_Agent_ Bristow," Skinner acquiesced. "The agents who are coming to talk to you are from a department called the X-Files."

"Yeah, unexplained phenomena, little green men, conspiracy theories. I read the bio. I can work a computer, just like you. If you want to know about Rambaldi—because that's what you're after, isn't it?—you can talk to a woman named Carson Evans—she likes to talk about this shit with the FBI—or to Director Kendall, though I doubt he'd give you anything that wasn't covered with doubletalk. I've read your file. Without authorization, your agents do not have clearance for anything related to Rambaldi. _You_ shouldn't even know his name," Sydney said. Lack of sleep and the fact that Rambaldi was coming back to bite her in the ass yet again were coming together to make her want to scream. Instead she just grew hostile toward the Assistant Director. "Now, I'll speak to your agents regarding the death of Lauren Reed, though I doubt I'll be much help, but anything beyond that and I walk. If they so much as ask me my shoe size I'm gone, got it?"

"Yes, Agent Bristow. I'll brief my agents as soon as they call in," Skinner said before hanging up.

Sighing heavily, Sydney hung up and continued her checks of the agents sent to speak to her. Once she was sure she had learned all she could off the official files, she did a little voodoo and found some unofficial ones. It was amazing and terrifying what one could find with the click of a few keys on a keyboard.

"What are you doing on the FBI mainframe? Thinking about jumping to the more domestic side of counter-terrorism?" Vaughn whispered in her ear as he gently massaged her shoulders.

"Mmm, keep that up and I'll do whatever you tell me to," Sydney whispered back, her head lolling until it hit his chest.

"I like the sound of that," Vaughn grinned. He placed a quick kiss on her bare neck just behind her left earlobe. "Dixon and Marshall are still working on the leak. We can go home now, if you want."

"I know who downloaded the files," Sydney said.

"Who?" Vaughn asked, once again the neatly pressed CIA golden boy and not the man who, only seconds before, was trying to figure out a way to convince her that they _would_ actually get some sleep if he got to stay the night.

"Some guy named Skinner. He's FBI. Works in the Hoover Building. He's AD over a division that wants to know about Rambaldi," Scully said. "The X-Files."

"X-Files? Sounds familiar," Vaughn said, perching himself on the edge of her desk. "I'm assuming they don't specialize in weapons control or anything simple like that."

"No, the specialize in the things that can't be explained. _X_, being the unknown, unexplainedquantity. Discovered by an Agent Mulder about fifteen years ago. He and his partner, Agent Scully, travel around the country and take on the cases that no one else wants to."

"Mulder? Why does that name sound so familiar?" Vaughn frowned, forehead creases out in full form.

Sydney shrugged. She hit some more keys and brought up Fox Mulder's file again. "Special Agent Fox William Mulder. 40, unmarried, and definitely delusional. This guy thinks that aliens are coming to 'colonize' Earth. Said they took his sister from the family's summer house in 1973."

"_Samantha_," Vaughn whispered reverently.

"Yeah," Sydney said slowly. "How'd you know that?" she frowned.

"I, uh… well, remember when I told you that my mom lives in Greenwich?"

"Yeah…"

"Well, her next door neighbour, until she killed herself a few years ago, was Teena Mulder. She was married to William 'Bill' Mulder and had two kids, Fox and Samantha. Her daughter was taken from their home when she was eight. Her brother, who was twelve at the time, had been watching her. He searched for her until literally the day Teena died. Sam died when she was eight. The rest of the Mulder's weren't much luckier," Vaughn said. "I grew up with them. Fox and I played baseball on the same team. Basketball, too. The occasional game of street hockey, though it wasn't too big back then. He was always a little weird, but after Sam was taken… it destroyed him. We still hung out together after that, though, until my dad died and mom moved us back to France to be closer to her family. Last time I talked to him was high school. He was a few years older than me and he looked me up during his summer break at Oxford. My first hangover came from that reunion," he said, smiling wistfully of days gone by. Days where the biggest problem was hiding a hangover from an ever-present mother. Sydney had never had such problems. "Then he started dating this Phoebe chick and we haven't spoken since. When mom moved to Greenwich and she and Teena got their friendship—or whatever the hell it was—back together I got stories of Fox's exploits at the FBI."

"So, does he really believe that aliens are coming?" Sydney asked as she shut her computer down and gathered her things back up again.

"Definitely," Vaughn said, falling into step beside her as they headed off to tell Marshall and Dixon that they could go home to their respective families because the leak wasn't as serious as they thought. "But he's no threat."

"Good, 'cause apparently I've got a meeting with him and his partner tomorrow," Sydney said.

Vaughn smirked. "Have fun with that."

Sydney growled and swatted him with her briefcase.

* * *

_Harrison Hot Springs is real, and a great vacation spot if you're ever in near-coastal BC. Very tourist-y, though._


	3. Chapter Three

_Sorry about all the 8's in the last chapter. It was a personal editing error that I won't go into at the moment. It won't happen again… I hope. _

* * *

**_FBI FIELD OFFICE _**

**_LOS ANGELES_**

**_1200h (PST)_**

It took several trips, but Scully got all the boxes of files into the yellow SUV she had been given at the Enterprise Car Rental station at LAX. She had complained about the colour, but hadn't put up her usual fight. Without Mulder around to raise her ire it was harder for Scully to get into a good rage. So, deciding that, if things went well, she wouldn't have to worry about tailing anyone, Scully took the yellow SUV and drove to the field station, the radio playing classic rock. Be it karma or fate or her all-around shitty luck with the West Coast or Mulder torturing her in abstencia, the only station that came through clearly on the abused radio was a classic rock one that Mulder would have loved but that made her wish she could afford to split her focus between the map and the road and the knobs because she just wanted the sound to go away.

She had tried to reach her partner at least a dozen times since landing at LAX, only succeeding in getting his voicemail and continually filing away a mental 'thank you' to Skinner for finally getting the Bureau issue phones on a plan that allowed them to call each other for free instead of having to try to explain away their sky-high cell phone bills whenever they had to do their song and dance with Accounting. Why the FBI didn't have the moble-to-moble plan in place for partners all along was something Scully had refrained from asking when all the calculators in Accounting heaved a collective sigh of relief at only having plane tickets, motel bills, and hospital fees to add up come audit time.

Scully was not only growing frustrated with Mulder, but she was getting more and more worried about him as well. So she went to Plan B.

Though they were, as a rule, her last resort for this kind of thing, Scully caved and called the Lone Gunmen to see if Mulder had left word with his geeky hacker friends.

Offering up a silent prayer to a God she wasn't altogether sure she still believed in that her brilliant but scattered partner had left her something—anything, even the tiniest hint of the proverbial trail of breadcrumbs—with the trio of misfits, Scully hit SEND. She crossed her fingers in hopes of getting Byers who was arguably the most stable of all of them, though she knew it was pointless. Byers was at a conference or something—she had been told but had blocked it out after a few minutes of babble. And Langly, the most insane of the group but at least not the one who had the hots for her, had taken on a very strong hatred for telephones in recent weeks, so she knew there was no chance of getting the Ramones-obsessed hacker on the line.

That left Frohicke, the troll who was like an eager puppy that was so ugly it was cute.

"Lone Gunmen Newspaper Group," Frohicke answered cheerfully.

"It's me. Have you seen or spoken to Mulder in the last eighteen hours or so?" Scully asked.

"Ahh, the delectable Agent Scully. How are you today?" Frohicke asked. Had they been talking in person he wouldn't have dared use that tone, but over the phone it seemed that verbal leering was fair game.

"I'm pissed off, Frohicke, so tell me if you've seen or spoken to Mulder in the last eighteen hours before I send some government types over to your place to raid you guys," Scully snapped.

Frohicke quieted, knowing she would never send anyone to raid them but that she was angry enough to do physical damage to him if he didn't get his head out of his ass and answer her question. "He came by last night. Late. Left a sealed envelope for you. Didn't say anything other than to give it to you personally. He seemed… out of it."

Scully swore aloud, something she had trained herself not to do after growing up as a sailor's daughter and learning the less than pure language of the Navy before the age of eight. "Did you open it?" she asked.

"No. Should I have?"

"You're the paranoid ones," Scully replied.

Frohicke grumbled something unintelligible, probably something about having good reason to be paranoid, then he said, "You gonna come by and pick it up or not?"

"I'm in Los Angeles. Be a bit of a trip to pick it up right now," Scully said. She was hesitant to do it, but knew it was probably the only way that she would find out where Mulder had gotten himself to. "Open it, Frohicke. If it's a letter, scan it and e-mail it to me. If it's anything else, tell me what it is and FedEx it to my hotel."

She could hear the tearing and unfolding of paper and then Frohicke's voice came back on the line. "It's a letter. I'll scan it and e-mail it now."

"Good. But send me the original, too. It's not a rush thing, I just want to see the papers for myself," Scully said. "I'll send you the address once I get checked in."

"I'll be waiting," Frohicke said before clicking off the line.

Scully drove a little more aggressively until she finally made it to the hotel that she had made reservations at. It was near the water, about ten blocks up from the beach—Scully couldn't remember which one—and was more expensive than she should have charged but it was only five minutes away from Sydney Bristow's home which made the convenience of the place a big selling point. So did the air conditioned rooms and the fact that, being part of a big chain of hotels, she was practically guaranteed a solid eight hours sleep on a bed that wasn't sagging from overuse or rank from sex like the motels Mulder usually found that rented by the month, week, day, hour, or portion there-of.

She adamantly refused to think of how different it would be to sleep in a room them had the scent of sex that she and Mulder brought on.

After getting the files safely into her hotel room, Scully plugged her computer into her cell phone and pulled up her e-mail. As promised there was a message from Frohicke waiting for her.

Opening the file, Scully settled in to read her partner's words.

_Scully,_

_I know you're pissed at me for not telling you my plans before leaving, but you've forgiven me before and I'm hoping you'll continue that trend. If you can't, I'll understand, though._

_When I got back to the office tonight you had left, which I had expected, but what I hadn't expected was to find someone else in the office waiting for me._

_It was your brother, Charlie._

_He doesn't know that I'm telling you he came to me so if you confront him, leave me out of it. I already have Bill plotting my death; I don't need your other brother joining his ranks._

_Anyway, he was there to ask me for some help. On an X-File. At least, it looks like an X-File. I realize we were working on the Dullahans and that the death of Lauren Reed is top priority, but Charlie promised this wouldn't take long and I hope to be back before Skinner calls you on the carpet for not installing some kind of tracking device in me like the microchip you had put in that ugly little rat of yours that you called a dog._

_The case your brother brought to me is simple, with very little likelihood that I'll get shot at, which is why I thought it best to let you opt out on this one. I won't bore you with the details here, but I'll be in New York for two days or so. I'll call you with my information as soon as I get settled._

_And, since I know you've already read this, Frohicke, you still owe me the hundred that you bet on the Knicks last week._

_Mulder_

Scully read it a second time, trying to see if there was a code or if it was just a straightforward letter.

She figured the latter, but with Mulder she could never tell for sure.

Resisting the urge to call her brother and remind him that, despite the fact that he was about a foot taller and probably had about a hundred pounds on her, she was still his big sister and could kick his ass just like when they were kids if she wanted to, Scully made sure everything was locked up and went to take a shower, hoping to wash away the old-lady smell that she got from being stuck between two women on their way to a bingo tournament who talked over her little red head the entire flight while she tried to sleep in hopes of avoiding jet lag.

After her shower Scully got into one of her favourite suits, a simple black suit with a slightly shorter skirt, making her legs look longer, a soft green silk shell that set off her hair into a mass of fire, and her highest pair of size six pumps. The files were safely locked in the bathroom and her laptop was in her shoulder-strapped briefcase along with the summary of all the files that Skinner had given her to read when she got a chance. Her cell phone was in the briefcase as well, along with her wallet and anything she would usually carry in a purse, if she had carried a purse anywhere since joining the FBI. Usually she just stuck things in her pockets if she was going out, cell phone, ID, money, all things that fit into jeans quite easily. An ankle holster could be hidden as well. With this suit, though, the skirt would reveal the ankle holster and a shoulder holster was too bulky for the clean lines of the jacket so Scully went for the belt clip and her spare was in her briefcase along with everything else.

The number Skinner had supplied her with was a work number, but she assumed—and hoped—that Sydney would be home, but, as it was Saturday and the government was notorious for giving it's hardest workers longer hours to make up for the people who just sat around, she wasn't holding out much hope. Judging by Sydney's file she couldn't make herself sit around if she tried. Plus the files didn't disclose if any missions were planned, as any kind of trail would jeopardize the mission, so Scully didn't even know if Sydney Bristow was in the country, let alone at home.

There were two cars parked out front, both dark sedans. A puppy was playing in the front yard; small and round and adorably roly-poly, chasing after a bug in the grass and pouncing like a lioness on her prey. A woman was sitting on the steps, beautiful even in a pair of loose pants and a tank top, her dark hair pulled in a messy ponytail, her hands wrapped around a coffee mug.

"Special Agent Dana Scully, I presume," the woman said with a wry smile before motioning Scully through the gate. "Don't worry about Herman. He's playful, but the worst he'll do is lick your face before stealing your dinner."

"Herman?" Scully asked as she cautiously opened the gate and slipped inside, closing it quickly, remembering far too many chases after QueeQueg when he got out of the small fenced in area behind her building.

Sydney shrugged. "Lit major. When Vaughn brought him home he reminded me of Melville."

"Moby Dick was my favourite book growing up. My dad used to read it to me every night. At least, when he was home," Scully said with a soft smile, remembering the nights when she lay in bed and her father's baritone voice swept her away to the world of the _Pequod_. It was moments like this one that she missed Ahab more than ever. She missed being Starbuck. She missed being a kid, where everything can be made better by a hug from daddy and a kiss from mommy.

"Never been a big fan of the ocean, but I can see where a Navy Brat like yourself would find the appeal," Sydney said. "Can I get you some coffee, Agent Scully?"

"No, I'm fine, thank you. How do you know who I am?"

"Same way you know who I am, only I went about it the legal way, without violating about fifteen laws and getting a State Senator and an Assistant Director, as well as several low level grunts at the SoCal FBI Field Office involved. Your AD called me last night to say that you and your partner, Agent Mulder, would be coming by today. I have friends at the FBI; they gave me access to the mainframe. I read your file. Impressive work. I found some of your cases little incredible, though, seen as you've read my record, I don't doubt you can say the same about me, right?"

Scully nodded. She hated it when her only advantage was taken away from her.

"I was told your partner would be accompanying you."

"He's currently on another assignment, but should be joining me in a few days, should this investigation last that long," Scully said, her excuse sounding valid even with her lack of viable knowledge about what her partner was really up to.

"You know, to be honest, I've been eager to meet him," Sydney continued, leading Scully into the house.

"That's not a normal reaction to Agent Mulder," Scully said.

"So I'm told, but I'm not talking in a professional sense. Your partner and mine grew up together," Sydney said, emptying her cup into the sink. Scully saw that it had just been water with a few ice cubes. "I mean, I read your partner's file as well, and it was every bit as impressive as yours, but Vaughn rarely talks about his childhood and I have to admit I was hoping for an insider's perspective on Vaughn."

"Vaughn. That would be Michael Vaughn, correct?" Scully asked.

"Yes," Sydney nodded. "Now, I told your AD this, and I'm sure he passed the message along to you, but in case he didn't or in case you just don't care or believe that I'd follow through on my threat, I'm gonna make something clear to you. You are investigating the death of Lauren Reed, a woman who was deep inside a terrorist organization called the Covenant. That's fine. Investigate that to your heart's content. But my life, and the lives of the people I love, will not become another one of your X-Files, understood? I deal with enough of this crap everyday, I do not need it from outside sources as well."

"Understood," Scully nodded. She knew it was better to play the game than to fight it. For the moment. "Now, tell me about Lauren Reed."

* * *

_What did you think? I've decided that the chapters are going to go back and forth, Scully and Sydney. They're both really strong women who have been through hell several times and I enjoy writing them._


	4. Chapter Four

**SYDNEY BRISTOW'S HOME **

**1300 h**

"Now, tell me about Lauren Reed."

Innocent enough words, really. Not really the type of thing to put someone in a murderous rage. And Sydney didn't get that kind of anger built up easily. In her life it was easy to hold grudges, but easier on you if you didn't. But Scully's innocent words stabbed at her fragile heart. Ever since her return from the not-really-but-should-have-been-for-all-the-pain-it-caused dead, the mere mention of the woman's name set Sydney's blood to boiling.

Taking a deep breath, Sydney approached the situation like she would a debrief. Factual, simple, and fast.

"Until about three years ago, she was a low level NSC peon who got promoted on daddy's good name. She was also working for the Covenant at that time, though higher up and, with them, trading on mommy dearest's rep. Lauren met, seduced, and married Michael Vaughn, who was not in the most stable of mindsets at the time, and her brainwashing technique was superb, making her biggest chore the task of keeping her lies straight. Then things got complicated when I came back."

"Back from what?" Scully asked.

"Technically? A covert op that I didn't sign up for and, like all other things in my life, seemed to be preordained," Sydney said. "But, if you want to get literal, I came back from the dead."

Scully nodded, her icy blue eyes widening a little, but she didn't say anything.

"I had been undercover in the Covenant, tricking them into thinking that they had tricked me into thinking that I was an assassin named Julia Thorne."

"Tricking them into thinking that they had tricked you into thinking…?" Scully frowned, her pen poised over her notepad that was already full of notes.

Sydney decided to start at the beginning. With Allison. "There was a machine that could alter DNA, making a person look and talk and… be another person. The people responsible for the device used it to replicate my best friend, Francie Calfo. She was killed, and her double was inserted into my life seamlessly. My life had undergone more changes in that one month than I can count… SD-6, being able to be with Vaughn, graduating… I didn't notice the changes in her. It culminated in a fight that tore our apartment to shreds. I shot her, and passed out. While I was out I was taken by the Covenant. They replaced my body with another woman who had my DNA inserted in her teeth, and they managed to save Allison's—the double's—life, and replaced her with the real Francie's body. Then they set my apartment on fire, faking my death," Sydney said, reciting a litany that she had gone through many times before, though it was slightly different each time. "The Covenant held me; they brainwashed me. Or, they tried to. When I was little my father used a program that he had developed for the CIA to train children to be spies. It had some kind of failsafe against psychological reconditioning. But, to save my life, I played along, and, after gaining their trust, I contacted an old friend who made me do the whole double agent deal again."

"Like when you were at SD-6?" Scully asked.

"More or less," Sydney nodded. "Only… the things I saw… the things I was forced to do… they got to me. And it wasn't like they didn't get to me at SD-6, because they did, but back then I had Vaughn to turn to when the shit hit the fan. I couldn't go to him, though, because he thought I was dead and he was living the Barbie dream life with Ms. Reed. It all got to be too much, so I went toHong Kongwhere an experimental treatment was about to go public. I had the last two years of my memory erased, not wanting to know about my time as Julia. The first thing I actually remember after the fight with Allison is waking up in an alley in Hong Kong and, after going to a CIA safehouse, Vaughn coming in with a ring on his finger."

"Hell of a way to wake up," Scully muttered.

"That's what I said," Sydney smirked.

They shared a small smile before going back to the task at hand.

"For the next eight months I worked with Vaughn and Lauren, barely coping at times, throwing myself into my work others. Then we found out that there was a mole in the Ops Centre and then Senator Reed died."

"I thought he killed himself," Scully said.

"That's what we were led to believe. Actually, we were close to nailing down Lauren as the mole, but her partner, Julian Sark, managed to convince Lauren to kill her father and frame him as the mole. It worked, too, though I didn't buy it. I mean, the woman stole the love of my life, I was a bit bitter, ya know?" Sydney said. "So I kept looking into it, and that led to fighting with Vaughn, which I hate, but the fight led to him checking out Lauren's luggage and he found the gun used to kill a suspect who had intel we needed. After that we set a trap for Lauren, knowing she was the mole and wanting to know whom else she was working with. That led us to her mother, and, later, to Sark."

"So how did she end up in Ireland?" Scully asked.

"I'm getting to that," Sydney said. "Anyway, Vaughn got stabbed and I thought Lauren had done it. There was a location, in Palermo, that was supposed to have an artefact that the CIA and a branch of the government that you're not cleared to know about wanted. I went there, knowing Lauren would be there because the Covenant wanted the artefact as well, and we fought. She was going to kill me, and Vaughn showed up at just the right moment. He gave her a chance, warned her he would shoot her if she didn't lower her gun, and when she made a move to pull the trigger, he shot her. She fell, but kept reaching for her gun, so he shot her again. I wasn't really thinking, so I don't know how many times he shot her," she lied, "but she fell down the shaft where the Covenant was digging. Vaughn needed medical attention for his stab wound, the flight from LA and his little escape trick from the hospital not doing much for his collapsed lung, so I got him to a hospital and called in a team to get Lauren's body. When they got to the dig site it was gone. It's not a top priority thing, so the CIA hasn't investigated the lack of a body. There are other things out there that are worse than body snatchers. The first I heard about her being in Ireland was when your AD called me. I don't know how she got there. I can't help you with anything else."

Scully nodded. "I just want to clarify a few points."

"Which points?" Sydney asked sceptically.

"Well, this procedure you endured, for one. And the doubling procedure, as well."

"Well, being a MD, you would be into the doctor stuff, wouldn't you?" Sydney said, almost sounding upset that she hadn't pieced together that little nugget earlier. "I'll get you're the file on the doubling. All I really got out of that ordeal was two dead friends. And the procedure that I went through… I've tried looking into it since I got back and found out what I did. But the doctor disappeared soon after I surfaced in this life again, and I don't have any records to help me look. There's a man you can call if you want to try to get more, but I doubt he'll give you much. Kendall likes his secrets."

"Kendall?"

"The friend I contacted when I was faking Julia," Sydney said. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Vaughn should have been back from his run a few minutes ago. She'd give him at least half an hour before she got worried, though. Chances were good that he just stopped for ice cream or something. If there was one thing her man loved after a good run, it was the disgusting concoction of blueberry-bubble-gum ice cream from the café a little ways down the beach from her place. She could barely stand to kiss him after he'd inhaled that little guilty pleasure. Barely, but not quite. She'd spent more than enough time _not_ kissing Michael Vaughn; now that he was hers once more she wasn't going to let something as small as goofy ice cream obsessions get in the way of the feeling of his lips playing against hers.

"And who does this friend work for?" Scully asked, making a note of Kendall's name on her legal pad.

"Can't say," Sydney said with a Mona Lisa smile.

"This is why the FBI and the CIA don't get along, Agent Bristow. This_ I would tell you but then I would have to kill you_ mentality you all seem to have drilled into you during training," Scully said bitterly.

"I didn't go through standard CIA training. If you've read my file, like I'm sure you have, you'd know that my training came from SD-6, a branch of the Alliance. I was trained by a group without a country, under the guise of the CIA. I don't have any intention of doing you any harm, Agent Scully. But, even if your superiors don't believe in it, there are certain levels of clearance that you just don't have and if I told you some of the things I know I would be breaking federal law. As an agent with the FBI, I would think you would appreciate my situation."

"I do appreciate your situation, but for all I know this Kendall person works at the Starbucks you frequent," Scully said acidicly.

Sydney bit back a scathing retort and took a breath. "I realise that, for clarity purposes, you need all the details, Agent Scully. But there is nothing to investigate here. Lauren Reed was shot by Michael Vaughn while he was trying to save me from her. I don't know what happened to her body, and if this has caused anyone any kind of pain, I'm sorry for that, but I'm not going to sit around and be interrogated because the woman who tried to _ruin_ my life and, when that didn't make her world sunshine and daffodils, she tried to _end_ my life. She killed countless innocent people, betrayed this country, and ended up dying for her crimes. It was a less humane way than she would have had she gone through a trial, but the end result is the same. She's dead, her father—arguably the only good person in her family, and that's not saying much because Senator Reed was involved in a lot of his own shit—is dead, Olivia Reed is working for the Covenant and hasn't been seen in months, and Julian Sark, the only person I think willingly loved Lauren, is in the CIA's custody."

"How was Mr. Sark arrested?" Scully asked.

"He and Lauren set eight bombs at different locations around the Ops Centre. Lauren placed them there, and shot a very good friend of mine, and, after stealing intel from us, Sark blew the charges as she escaped. Agent Eric Weiss and some people from Tech Ops tracked Sark's location and he was arrested with the codes to the bombs on his laptop in his lap."

"And who was shot?" Scully asked.

"Marshall Flinkman. He was at SD-6 with me, and, after the take-down, he came to work for the CIA. He is our tech guy. He can do insane things with household items."

"Such as?" Scully inquired.

Sydney glanced around until she found her briefcase. She went into it's black leather depths and pulled out a pair of sunglasses with a lock-pick set in the arms like he had done for her years before on her first mission as a double agent in Russia. She then pulled out a more updated version of the _Artful Dodger_ and demonstrated it's power on the curtains she had been meaning to replace anyway. "Marshall is brilliant, and his inventions have saved my ass more times than I can count. He's fine, now. His son doesn't understand why he can't play with him the same way he used to, but once his stomach muscles regain their strength he'll be back to normal."

"I'm glad to hear it," Scully said, and Sydney found herself wanting to believe the other woman.

"Look, I get that the moving of the body is not a good thing, that's established. And, even though I'm not the most impartial judge on Lauren Reed, I think what happened to her was more than due after everything she did. So why are you investigating this?" Sydney asked. "I don't see a case."

"When a Senator's daughter dies, it's FBI business. Mulder and I pulled the short straws, the draw unfairly stacked against us because we were already investigating a case centred around Galway and, seen as that was where Ms. Reed was found, we got the assignment. And I know I mixed my metaphors back there but it's been a long day and I'm not at my peak."

After taking a good look at Scully, Sydney could see the signs of jet lag clearly in the small woman's face—dark circles under her eyes that were carefully hidden beneath make-up that had faded somewhat and made the black circles turn a bruise-grey, slumping shoulders under the exquisite Donna Karen suit—and, being a sufferer of said malady more times than there were numbers for, Sydney took pity on the FBI agent.

"You know, I've got some stuff to do today. If you have any more questions, do you think they could wait until tomorrow?" Sydney asked.

"I'll come back tomorrow," Scully said, hiding her gratitude behind enigmatic eyes. She gathered up her things and put them away, stopping briefly to scratch Herman's floppy ears before leaving.

Sydney followed her out, watching as the petite red head got in a yellow SUV and started screaming into her cell phone as she pulled away from the curb with ease. As the sport utility vehicle disappeared around the corner, Sydney smiled at the way Agent Scully seemed to have a great friendship with the gas peddle.

* * *

**_Sorry about the delay. This chapter has been sitting in my Documents folder for almost two weeks. I kept thinking I'd posted it. Sorry._**

****

**_M_**


	5. Chapter Five

**EN ROUTE TO LOS ANGELES FIELD OFFICE **

**1400 PST**

Driving in LA is very much like driving in DC, only with more convertibles, louder music, and different mentalities. Traffic wasn't as bad as Scully thought and her lead-foot got her away from Sydney's house faster than legal but not fast enough for her tastes.

As she pulled away from Sydney's beautiful home by the beach with the picket fence and the new puppy and the seemingly perfect life that Sydney Bristow led—though Scully knew it was far from perfect—Scully pulled out her cell phone and dialled her brother's number.

Charlie, the baby of the Scully clan, had dropped off the family radar several years before and, other than a gift on her birthday and cards at Christmas, Scully hadn't heard from her brother since before Ahab died. She knew she had to take a great deal of the blame for the rift—she and Charlie, being the youngest, had been closer than the others and, with her work schedule, Scully hadn't had the time to deal with her baby brother—and Scully didn't like that the first time she used the phone number since he'd given it to her the year before wasn't to talk to her brother, but to yell at her partner. But, like many things in her life, Scully just let it go and waited for someone to pick up the phone in New York.

Finally her brother picked up the phone, just as the voicemail was about to kick in. "Hello?"

"Hey, Charlie," Scully said, a smile spreading across her lips despite the reason for her call.

"_Da…na_," Charlie said slowly. Scully smiled. He definitely wasn't happy to hear from her. Good. If he was already afraid she'd kick his ass her job was just that much easier.

"Where is he?" Scully asked pleasantly. Psychological warfare. Something she had _learned_ growing up with two brothers. Something she had _perfected_ since meeting Fox Mulder.

"He who?" Charlie asked dumbly.

"Charlie," Scully said in a warning tone.

Charlie started to appease Scully with news from their other brother, Bill—something that, of late, she couldn't care less about—but in the background she could hear grumbling.

She knew that voice.

Mulder.

"He's right there, isn't he?" Scully interrupted. "Put Mulder on the phone, Charlie. **_NOW_**."

There was a muffled shuffling and then her partner came on the line. "Hey, Scully. I see you got my note."

"You don't _see _anything, Mulder. Why the hell didn't you just call me and tell me what was going on instead of running off with a vague and disturbing note left with the Gunmen that I wouldn't have even received if Skinner didn't think that I should find your skinny ass before taking any steps on the top priority case we were assigned that has gotten more and more convoluted as pieces of information drift in from random but reliable sources. I'm glad you left a note and I'm sure whatever Charlie needed your help with is valid, but we've got a Senator's murdered daughter, her widower who I haven't seen but I doubt is very distraught by her death, his girlfriend, the CIA, and about fifty levels of classification above my clearance to deal with and I can't do this on my own. So get your ass on a plane to LA right now or I swear I'll…"

"You'll what?" Mulder asked.

Scully took a steadying breath. It was a threat she didn't want to make, but if she had to, she would make good on it. She just prayed she wouldn't have to.

"I'll leave. And you'll _never_ see me again," Scully said.

"I'm on my way," Mulder said without a moment's hesitation.

Scully beamed and fought the urge to cheer as she heard Mulder make an apology to her brother who seemed to take the abandonment fairly well. But then again, Scully reminded herself, Charlie had always been pretty flexible. It was something that had made it easier for him to move around so much when they were growing up. Bill had been stiff and rigid like Ahab, bending only to the will of the Navy and the sea. Maggie had followed her husband faithfully, even if she only saw him about six weeks out of the year, less sometimes if there was a new ship to break in or an assignment that the higher ups thought only Ahab could handle. Melissa has curled herself up in her own world and had moved out on her own as soon as she possibly could, finding an apartment that she fell in love with and refusing to move ever again. And Scully had gone with the rest of the family, working her ass off to please her absentee father who was absentee with one of the few good reasons—not that there were any really good reasons not to see your children grow up—to be absent, altering the course she set for herself at the age of ten only when she decided that she could help more people with the FBI than in private practise.

"Call me with your flight information. I'll call Skinner and let him know that you'll be joining me," Scully said, her voice cool and collected, not giving away any of the emotion she felt pushing against her carefully constructed walls that were built to protect her against extreme emotional expression.

"Alright," Mulder said. "Um… Scully… you'll explain the whole LA thing to me when I get there, right?" he asked lamely.

"Only because it'll help with the case," Scully said. "Now get going. I'm just pulling up to the field office now. I've got some things to check out. I might be able to get some information from an old friend, but if that doesn't come through… well, I'll tell you when you get here."

"Just promise me you aren't going to leave," Mulder said. The unspoken 'me' hung over both their heads.

"I don't want to leave the X-Files, Mulder, but I will if I have to," Scully said.

"I wasn't talking about the X-Files," Mulder said gently. It was the closest they had come to replaying the hallway ordeal since the attack of the alien-virus-carrying killer bee. Scully just wished they weren't on opposite sides of the continent.

Sighing softly, Scully closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat. "We'll talk when you get here, okay? I don't want to have this conversation right now, not with three thousand miles between us," she said honestly.

"I really am sorry, Scully," Mulder said pitifully.

"I know you are," Scully said. "You always are," she added sadly before hanging up and turning her phone to silent as she got out of the car. She hated hanging up on Mulder, but her emotions were running so high that she knew she would end up saying something she would regret.

* * *

The field office had been a bust. She had spent almost several hours going through whatever they had. It turned out that they didn't know anything about Senator Reed or his daughter other than what was already public record.

As she left the building and headed back to the rental, Scully mentally listed off what the past few hours wading through paperwork and dealing with the usual egos had been.

A dead end.

A waste of time.

And a welcome distraction from her problems with Mulder.

Scully was a little surprised when the only message on her voicemail was Mulder giving her his flight information, but she hoped that he was just respecting her wishes to wait until they were together to talk about the problems they were having. The only thing that worried her about that was that she wasn't sure she would be able to talk to Mulder about their problems when they were together. The man was so frustratingly sexy that sometimes he made rational thought impossible for the logical scientist Dana Scully prided herself on being. Just one look at that full, pouty bottom lip and she was gone. And when his eyes met hers and every ounce of his passion was directed at her, no matter how briefly, it took every last bit of Scully's strength to keep her knees from turning to water.

"Ooh boy," Scully sighed before starting the car and heading to LAX to pick up her partner.

* * *

_**The Alias chapter 4 went up fine, but I posted the X-Files chapter 5 in chapter 4's place. Sorry about that. Please go read the interview with Syd and Scully if you haven't seen it yet.**_


	6. Chapter Six

**WAREHOUSE**

**2300 (PST)**

Sydney smiled softly as she looked around the warehouse that, for almost two years, had been her safe haven. The warehouse. _Their_ warehouse. Hers and Vaughn's. She hadn't been back since the Alliance takedown, at first because she had Vaughn around and didn't need to go there to be reminded of him, then, after her two year disappearing act, because she already had enough reminders of Vaughn and didn't want to torture herself further by immersing herself in a place that was theirs, that Lauren couldn't touch no matter how hard she tried.

The crates and table had gathered a great amount of dust since her last visit, a testament to both herself and Vaughn—not even the cold and seemingly heartless CIA superpowers dared disrupt their sacred space by changing one fake title for another and switching its use from meeting place to storage unit or safehouse.

"Not much has changed," Vaughn commented as he walked up to the cage and stepped through the open gate.

"Not a thing has changed," Sydney corrected. "Have… have you been here since we met with my dad and Kendall that day with the intel from server 47?"

"Once. After… the funeral. But it was too hard to deal with all the memories," Vaughn confessed. "I would look at the table and think about how we'd spread out files to work on countermissions together when nothing seemed to be working out. I would see the crates and think about how we'd put our coats and things there when we'd be here for more than a few seconds, when I would have time to memorize everything about you before sending you off to dangerous situations. I thought about the time you called me here to apologize because of what your mother did to my father and how you let me hold you for the first time. Or when you invited me to a hockey game and I wanted so badly to say yes. And then I would think about how many times I thought about pushing you up against the crates or the fence or the wall and kissing you until neither one of us could breathe," he said, moving closer to Sydney. Her body was tingling, aching for his touch.

"I kept thinking about the fantasies I'd had, of making love to you in here, in the one corner of the world where we could be ourselves and not worry about anything for a little while. I kept thinking about how you screamed my name whenever you came and my mind tried to decide if your voice would be louder because of the high ceilings or if it would echo because of the way the building is shaped. I drove myself crazy in the two minutes I actually stayed here, and then I ran out, locked up, and drove away, promising that I wouldn't look back because you wouldn't have wanted that, wouldn't have wanted me to live with the 'what if's' and the ghosts of our lives when they were what had taken you away from me to begin with."

Sydney wrapped her arms around Vaughn, burying her face in his neck, hating that she had hurt him so badly by being taken, wishing for the billionth time since waking up in Hong Kong that she hadn't passed out after fighting Allison. They didn't cry, having vowed not to shed any more tears for the two years of missing time with a third year tacked on just for some added torture. They just held each other and reminded themselves that they had made it through what would most likely be the biggest obstacle they would ever have to get around in their personal relationship.

Finally they stepped away from each other and Vaughn said, "Why did you want to meet here? Getting nostalgic?"

"No. Well, maybe a little, but that's not the real reason," Sydney said. "I know that this building isn't bugged, and the protocol is still set up for us to meet here despite the lack of need since the Alliance went down."

"So what's up?" Vaughn asked.

"An agent from the FBI came by the house today. She kept it very professional, but I could tell she wanted to find out everything I know about Rambaldi," Sydney said. "Even though I knew it was coming… the whole thing threw me."

Vaughn sighed heavily. "I've been calling around, trying to pin down some more details about these guys. Their methods are controversial, to say the least, but they get the job done. Their solve rate is the highest in the Violent Crimes section, and in the top ten in the Bureau overall. Agent Mulder runs the two-person division and Agent Scully gives credibility to his work."

"What's the consensus on them? Other than the fact that they get the job done, I mean," Sydney said.

"Divided. Half the people I talked to worship them, think the sun rises and sets on the X-Files team," Vaughn said. "The other half thinks they're insane. Or, more accurately, that Mulder is insane and that Scully is teetering on the edge herself for staying partnered with him for so long. Overall, though, everyone agrees that they are a good team and, though not through the most conventional of means, they have solved cases that no one else could."

"Well, at least now we know that the CIA isn't the only part of the government interested in the occult," Sydney said with a sad little sigh.

"What I want to know if how Lauren's body got to Ireland and how the FBI got involved."

"Senator Reed still has some friends in high places, even now. When Lauren's body turned up in Ireland riddled with bullets… murder was the automatic assumption. Agent's Mulder and Scully were apparently already working a case in Ireland and it got… tied into our lives, I guess," Sydney said. "I don't really know how it's working, honestly. Agent Scully was reluctant to part with any information that may colour me as a witness," she said with an exaggerated eye roll.

"I'm surprised the Director hasn't quashed this already," Vaughn admitted.

"Be hard to do without losing plausible deniability," Sydney pointed out. "Besides, if what we've been told about these guys is true they won't accept a cover-up. They seem to be very against that kind of thing."

Vaughn nodded, conceding that point.

"Okay, time to get to the point," Sydney said. "How are we going to deal with them?"

* * *

_Okay, I admit it, this was a throwaway chapter. I just needed Sydney to do something proactive 'cause, well, that's what she does. I don't see her as the type of person to sit around and let someone investigate both herself and the people she loves the most._

_Love it? Hate it? Somewhere in between? Let me know._

_M_


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